Normally, because a male electrical contact is simply housed in a passageway inside a plug housing of an electrical plug connector, there is some free movement, however small, caused by play between the male contact and the passageway. This can lead to the problem that when the plug housing and a receptacle housing of an electrical receptacle connector are connected together, if there is movement up and down or left and right or both by the male contacts, the ends of the male contact sections will be misaligned with respective female contact sections of female electrical contacts housed in the receptacle housing thereby causing possible damage to the contact sections or housings or both as well as no or improper connection between the plug and receptacle connectors. In order to prevent this, a male contact guide member is provided within the plug housing which can move inside the plug housing in the mating direction while guiding the male contact sections of the male contacts for aligned engagement with the respective female contact sections of the receptacle contacts in the receptacle housing during mating engagement between the plug and receptacle connectors.
This guide member must be in an outer position where it can align the ends of the contact sections of the male contacts, and, when the two housings are mated together, it must be moved to an inner position where it will not impede the electrical engagement of the male and female contacts as disclosed in Japanese U. M. Publication No. 56-37344. The connector of this Publication uses a spring to automatically move the guide member to the outer position at the ends of the contact sections when the connectors are disconnected. However, in such a connector the need for a spring is a deficiency in that it increases the number of parts and assembly time.